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Seekers after God By: Frederic W. Farrar (1831-1903) |
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BY THE REV. F. W. FARRAR, D.D., F.R.S., CANON OF WESTMINSTER. SENECA.
"Ce nuage frangé de rayons qui toucbe presqu' à l'immortelle aurore
des vérités chrétiennes." PONTMAOTIN. INTRODUCTORY. On the banks of the Baetis the modern Guadalquiver, and under the
woods that crown the southern slopes of the Sierra Morena, lies the
beautiful and famous city of Cordova. It had been selected by Marcellus
as the site of a Roman colony; and so many Romans and Spaniards of high
rank chose it for their residence, that it obtained from Augustus the
honourable surname of the "Patrician Colony." Spain, during this period
of the Empire, exercised no small influence upon the literature and
politics of Rome. No less than three great Emperors Trajan, Hadrian,
and Theodosius, were natives of Spain. Columella, the writer on
agriculture, was born at Cadiz; Quintilian, the great writer on the
education of an orator, was born at Calahorra; the poet Martial was a
native of Bilbilis; but Cordova could boast the yet higher honour of
having given birth to the Senecas, an honour which won for it the
epithet of "The Eloquent." A ruin is shown to modern travellers which
is popularly called the House of Seneca, and the fact is at least a
proof that the city still retains some memory of its illustrious sons. Marcus Annaeus Seneca, the father of the philosopher, was by rank a
Roman knight. What causes had led him or his family to settle in Spain
we do not know, and the names Annaeus and Seneca are alike obscure. It
has been vaguely conjectured that both names may involve an allusion to
the longevity of some of the founders of the family, for Annaeus seems
to be connected with annus , a year, and Seneca with senex , an old
man. The common English composite plant ragwort is called senecio from
the white and feathery pappus or appendage of its seeds; and similarly,
Isidore says that the first Seneca was so named because "he was born
with white hair." Although the father of Seneca was of knightly rank, his family had never
risen to any eminence; it belonged to the class of nouveaux riches ,
and we do not know whether it was of Roman or of Spanish descent. But
his mother Helvia an uncommon name, which, by a curious coincidence,
belonged also to the mother of Cicero was a Spanish lady; and it was
from her that Seneca, as well as his famous nephew, the poet Lucan,
doubtless derived many of the traits which mark their intellect and
their character. There was in the Spaniard a richness and splendour of
imagination, an intensity and warmth, a touch of "phantasy and flame,"
which we find in these two men of genius, and which was wholly wanting
to the Roman temperament. Of Cordova itself, except in a single epigram, Seneca makes no mention;
but this epigram suffices to show that he must have been familiar with
its stirring and memorable traditions. The elder Seneca must have been
living at Cordova during all the troublous years of civil war, when his
native city caused equal offence to Pompey and to Caesar. Doubtless,
too, he would have had stories to tell of the noble Sertorius, and of
the tame fawn which gained for him the credit of divine assistance; and
contemporary reminiscences of that day of desperate disaster when
Caesar, indignant that Cordova should have embraced the cause of the
sons of Pompey, avenged himself by a massacre of 22,000 of the citizens.
From his mother Helvia, Seneca must often have heard about the fierce
and gallant struggle in which her country had resisted the iron yoke of
Rome. Many a time as a boy must he have been told how long and how
heroically Saguntum had withstood the assaults and baffled the triumph
of Hannibal; how bravely Viriathus had fought, and how shamefully he
fell; and how at length the unequal contest, which reduced Spain to the
condition of a province, was closed, when the heroic defenders of
Numantia, rather than yield to Scipio, reduced their city to a heap of
bloodstained ruins... Continue reading book >>
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Philosophy |
Religion |
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